Clinton Friends are Lobbyists and Treasurers of Political Committees

An update to Hillary Watch 2006

Longtime Clinton friend Harold Ickes is currently Treasurer of “Hillary Rodham Clinton for US Senate Committee Inc” (FEC data). Ickes previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Clinton White from 1994 to 1997. He earned the notorious title of ?Director of Sanitation? as he took care of the majority of the scandals arising from President Clinton’s abuses of power. Ickes himself also had problems when, according to The Wall Street Journal, he was suspected to have committed perjury “in a 1997 deposition given to a Senate committee investigating campaign-finance irregularities.” After his White House tenure, he ran Hillary’s successful Senate campaign in 1999 and 2000.

Janice Enright is Treasurer of Hill PAC (FEC data), Hillary Clinton’s leadership political action committee on which she is the Honorary Chair. Enright was Special Assistant to Harold Ickes while he was serving President Clinton.

Ickes and Enright are both registered lobbyists and co-founders of the lobbying firm Ickes & Enright.

Loyalty to longtime supporters is one thing, but having two registered lobbyists acting as treasurers of political committees certainly raises some ethical questions. Ickes and Enright both have lobbied on behalf of numerous companies. This obviously can create a conflict of interest as two treasurers have the ear of Senator Clinton and both are in charge of managing and soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars from contributors.

Prominent Donors to Hill PAC

Prominent donors to Hill PAC include Bernie L. Schwartz, the man who bought the influence of President Clinton and who was able to sell satellite technology to the Communist Chinese. Despite playing a large part in the Chinagate scandal where the Clinton Administration used the Department of Trade illegally to raise campaign funds, Schwartz is still donating to Democrats. He donated $5000 this January to Hill PAC.

Another large donor is Roger Altman. Altman was the Deputy Treasury Secretary under President Clinton and later became John Kerry’s primary economic advisor during the 2004 presidential election race. He also got into a little trouble during the Clinton administration:

Notwithstanding strong support by Clinton, Altman resigned Aug. 29, 1994 following revelations he tipped the White House off to criminal referrals made by Resolution Trust Corp. investigators related to Madison Guaranty. Altman, a college friend of Clinton’s, angered both Republican and Democratic senators after giving conflicting testimony about White House-Treasury contacts.

Testifying before the Senate banking committee in February 1994, then-deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman (a college friend of Clinton’s) conceded he had given top White House officials, including then-White House counsel Bernard Nussbaum, a “heads-up” on nine RTC criminal referrals that in one instance targeted Clinton’s 1985 gubernatorial campaign, and named the Clintons as witnesses in others. Eight days after the “heads up,” Clinton met with former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker in the Oval Office. Clinton advisors George Stephanopoulos and Harold Ickes also came under fire following revelations they called Altman to protest the choice to head the RTC probe, Pillsbury partner Jay Stephens, a former Bush-appointed U.S. attorney fired by Clinton in 1993. (CNN.com)

Roger Altman currently works for Evercore Partners, an investment company.